{"id":23791,"date":"2024-05-30T04:37:46","date_gmt":"2024-05-29T23:07:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=23791"},"modified":"2025-04-07T04:58:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-06T23:28:11","slug":"microcephaly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/microcephaly\/","title":{"rendered":"Microcephaly"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>About Microcephaly:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is a <strong>rare neurological condition<\/strong> in which an <strong>infant&#8217;s head is much smaller<\/strong> than the heads of other children of the same age and sex.<\/li>\n<li>Sometimes detected at birth, microcephaly often occurs when there is a problem with brain development in the womb or when the brain stops growing after birth.<\/li>\n<li>It can be caused by a variety of <strong>genetic and environmental factors<\/strong>. Children with microcephaly often have developmental issues.<\/li>\n<li>Most children with microcephaly also have a <strong>small brain, poor motor function, poor speech, and abnormal facial features<\/strong>, and are intellectually disabled.<\/li>\n<li>The most common <strong>causes include:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Infections during pregnancy<\/strong>: toxoplasmosis (caused by a parasite found in undercooked meat), Campylobacter pylori, rubella, herpes, syphilis, cytomegalovirus, HIV and Zika;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Exposure to toxic chemicals:<\/strong> Maternal exposure to heavy metals like arsenic and mercury, alcohol, radiation, and smoking;<\/li>\n<li>Pre- and perinatal injuries to the developing brain (hypoxia-ischemia, trauma);<\/li>\n<li>Genetic abnormalities such as Down syndrome; and severe malnutrition during fetal life.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Symptoms: <\/strong>Many babies born with microcephaly may demonstrate no other symptoms at birth but go on to develop epilepsy, cerebral palsy, learning disabilities, hearing loss and vision problems.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Treatment: <\/strong>There is no specific treatment for microcephaly.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1 What are genetic disorders?<\/h3>\n<p>Genetic disorders occur when a mutation (a harmful change to a gene, also known as a pathogenic variant) affects your genes or when you have the wrong amount of genetic material.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/science\/how-an-altered-protein-and-fussy-neurons-conspire-to-cause-microcephaly\/article68224798.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">How an altered protein and fussy neurons conspire to cause microcephaly<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Microcephaly is a rare neurological condition in which an infant&#8217;s head is much smaller than the heads of other children of the same age and sex.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":23792,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23791","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}